(This is based on a facebook post, so the editing is bad. Usually when i go over something a few times, it’s way more polished looking.)
I’ve honestly given up on complaining about media not being woke. I noticed most of the biggest activists for social causes will complain about some media being problematic, but then enjoy other media just as, if not more problematic and not even think about it. The fact is sometimes really cringe stuff can create drama in writing, and one reason stories are enjoyable is because characters are flawed, they are not always tolerant and ethical, and the world they live in may just be utterly terrible. It seems impossible to create drama without some problematic ideas coming about.
Berserk is a good example of that, I have two friends who are male feminists that absolutely love Berserk. BUt that comic has woman getting gang raped lots, drawn all curvy and highly sexualized. Even though it’s framed as a trauma, the framing of the pictures is similar to hentai. Thing is though, Berserk is just soooo good. It’s such a good story, even with rape being exploitive in how it’s drawn and framed, you get the idea it’s horrible, the whole world is horrible, and it adds stakes to what the characters have to deal with. The characters, the intense fight scenes and tension with every battle, the characterization all make it so easy to ignore the very blatant exploitation elements in the story. Infact if the rape scenes were not over the top, it would not match the highly violent and sexualized world that exists in the comic. It would have a different feel. I dare say the exploitation even makes it better, which I don’t even want to say, because socially it’s not good for society.
Game of Thrones is another example, lots of woke people love it. But both the books and movies are well…using violence against woman to the point it’s a trope. But so many people love it. Remember all the white feminist hillary supporters talking about how awesome Daenerys was? Clearly they enjoyed and watched the show and books despite the fact so much of it is written with a male gaze, and using rape casually.
I honestly don’t blame them. It’s okay to critisize your media, I do it all the time. But at some point you have to just…ignore it. Otherwise there is so little media to enjoy.
“But wait Adeel. What about *insert highly woke franchise*? That show/movie/book is perfect!”
Well remember Josh Whedon? Socially left people used to love him, people said his stuff was the most positive toward woman and minorities. He was used as an example for how to write woke media. Yet today people look back at much of his work, and find problematic elements of it, such as the trope of normalizing INCELS(Dr. Horrible) mistaking male gaze as sex positive feminism(Lots of stuff including Fire-Fly) reducing a woman’s value to her reproductive ability(Age of Ultron) and a bunch of other stuff I’m sure people complained about. It didn’t matter that at the time it was almost perfectly woke, it was an example of progressive story telling and depictions of woman. Yet today it is his protrayl of woman which is criticized. At some point media will fail to evolve it’s social views to societies.
Star Trek was always seen as a progressive franchise, but we know there are episodes in TOS and TNG that have not aged well like the time Troy got pregnant with a space baby, and everyone was concerned about the womb, or Kirk and how he treated female characters.
THe fact is, even if you find a piece of media that is ‘perfectly woke’ chances are you miss things that will only come out in the future. So let’s just write and enjoy media, and hopefully not promote anything overtly hateful.
She-Ra and Stephen universe are perhaps the most woke shows made in recent years, so damn woke that even before the full season came out, the anti-social justice skeptic crew on youtube took one look at it and hated the very concept of them as pushing a woke agenda. And yes, both shows are very very gay, very very woke. But they are still very good and enjoyable shows
(I loved She-Ra, I couldn’t get into Stephen Universe)
Thing is, even these shows have yielded criticism from the very same communities they wanted to represent. The most notable is the showrunner for She-Ra apologizing for a slavery joke, which is understandable. But she also got in heat for how she protrayed certain LGBTQ aspects. Now I am not LGBTQ so I totally missed where she’s offensive, but she apparently got in shit for screwing up female representation and representing autism, even though the so called autistic character never came out and said they were autistic.
Stephen Universe got slammed for showing how some of the main Gems behaved, how the white Gem would take a more ‘submissive’ role to the ‘ethnic’ gems when merging. I saw one article ranting about portraying woman of colour as aggressive while white woman as dainty. Personally I found I had to squint to notice this, it isn’t some big huge thing.
Now remember the two shows I’m talking about, they were slammed by the right and anti-SJW skeptic sphere for how woke they are. And STILL people were finding faults with them, and these are recent too, they aren’t so old that they existed in far more bigoted eras.
I write.
There are problems in my writing, I have grammar issues and spelling, though people like that I have a style, a voice.
That’s good.
But a big thing I struggle with when writing is the fact that I wanted to make sure I didn’t offend anyone, didn’t cross any taboos unintentionally. ANd it got to the point I would throw in characters or change aspect of characters that are uninspired or do nothing for the story just to meet some sort of quota for representation.
My writing became less smooth, and I hesitated a great deal.
I noticed as long as I’m not being overtly hateful, just simply writing a story and characters the way you want produces a better story, without worrying about representation.
That isn’t to say we shouldn’t use representation when appropriate, or that it makes a story worse. Sometimes representation makes a story better.
So before I talk about where represenation can hurt story telling, I want to get into where it works.
When representation works.
Not only was Azeem’s character cool in Prince of Thieves, but yeah it was good to see Muslim representation. ALso the way he came to England was pretty feasible, it was seamless and didn’t require too much of a suspension of disbelief. Google didn’t exist back then, the way they showed islamic prayers was really off, and it portrayed Azeem with the ‘fatalistic muslim’ stereotype. Yet I’ll say I’ve met Muslims that act like Azeem, and he was shown as intelligent, resourceful and tough. You can tell Morgan Freeman had fun playing him, and the writers had fun writing his role.
Sense 8 was a show written by a trans woman, so it’s no surprise they had a trans character, and lots of sexually fluid people.
But the show explains the connections they have cross over skills and even desires, and much of the characters reflected the cultures that produced them. That’s not to say there is some BS, as this show didn’t advertise itself as an action movie, yet we have a skinny Korean woman beating up muscle bound men with single shots instead of some creative fight choreography. But that’s not a problem with representation, more how the action was organized. The story with the trans character was making a political statement, but it also genuinely created tension. It wasn’t some random story of transphobia that had no consequences to the general plot or world, the transphobia in this genuinely threatened and shaped the trans character. It was good representation, I genuinely cared about the character and her problems.
Apollo and Midnighter are basically super-man and batman rip-offs if you’re harsh, or analogues if you’re more gentle minded.
Thing is though Midnighter is kind of cool. He’s gay as fuck, but he’s really cool, his preferences are just one of many aspects of his character and it’s fun to see.
Apollo as well is basically SUperman. This story could even be seen as what would happen if Super-man and batman were a couple.
But it doesn’t just use that premise to say “LOL what if gay” it actually adds to the dynamic and trust between the two of them. There is a reason this comic series kept going along side Bat-man and Superman despite essentially being a copy.
But now lets talk about where it doesn’t work
This show was actually good, I liked it.
It was supposed to be a speculative fiction version of Victorian england with steam punk elements involving Watson and Sherlock Holmes.
Thing is though, while I know england has a very old black community, we have two characters that are sisters. At first I thought they were adopted or raised as sisters, but it’s strongly implied they are blood sisters. One is an asian actress the other is white. They cast all sorts of races in victorian england for all sorts of characters.
Modern day England is very multicultural, but at the time this is supposed to take place it isn’t. Yes it’s a fantasy/sci-fi story, but the whole rustic mood is ruined. It seemed like the only reason it took place during the industrial revolution was because they wanted an excuse for abject poverty and classism more than the setting itself. They could have just put it in the modern day, and had Sherlock Holmes and Watson equivalents.
The next on the list is Super-Girl. It has a trans character.
Thing is, I noticed trans friends on my facebook don’t really talk about this character, no one cares or seems to idolize them.
Because her transness is incidental. Not in the way that gender is just one facet of a complex character, no. This character constantly invokes their trans identity.
But the plot generally does nothing with her. She’s just a love interest for Brainiac, but his reactions to her are more interesting than this character herself. Despite her being Trans is something often brought up, most characters don’t react to her being trans other than one episode about trans phobia where villians and people we don’t give a shit about and will never again see again. No character has to wrestle with their bigotry. They don’t have to address trans issues in the show, but the fact they highlight this part of her identity constantly makes it strange no one else cares.
The plot sometimes has her have premonitions to bring up some tension and relevance toward her, but she really isn’t a defining character.
Super-Girl is a successful show, but people remember Kara’s character, not this one.
THE ELITE really gets to me, because the Muslim Character not only is there to be the ‘ethnic one’ but it follows the same tired trope.
When she wears hijab she’s timid and scared. She takes it off and she’s open and rambunctious and cool.
Well if you want to do a token Muslim character wrestling with a western identity, make her dynamic well before she takes the Hijab off. Show the headscarf issue as complex in the cultural context. Even if the show runners thought the Hijab is oppressive, show that perhaps Muslim woman can wear something patriarchal by choice but still have complex character beats, often liberated in other ways. I’m not even asking them to be pro-Hijab, just show people can be multifaceted with them.
There are many woman who take the hijab off or never wear it, and they can be very socially liberal or repressed.
There are girls that keep the hijab on and are very individual, they have a spark.
There are woman who take it off, yet will defend the shit out of the right to wear it.
It’s the tired old “The Muslim character must always be wrestling with conservative culture, there is always a cognitive dissonance”
Yes there is always cultural dissonance, but it’s not the only thing in their lives.
Sometimes girls who wear hijab do normal things, they aren’t always repressed. Most hijabi girls I know were less repressed than me if they grew up in a western country.
Same problem as the Irregulars, but the Irregulars could at the very least get away with random asians being the sisters of white girls and the daughter of a white Sherlock Holmes and his wife.
Bridgton even tries to lean into it’s setting and historical period regarding woman’s rights and abortion etc.
Yet somehow a noble family are a bunch of black folks, and no one gives a shit at all.
Yes this show is about hot people having lots of sex and great sex scenes woman appreciate. But you know, why bother with the social commentary then if historical accuracy doesn’t matter? Why bother even talking about social norms of the era?
Then again this example I could be talking about maybe is a bad one, because people loved this show, they didn’t care at all.
So maybe it’s just me.
Oh Boy. This example brings my point home.
Now GIRLS Is not my show, once again it’s a critical hit like Bridghton mostly among woman. Thing is though, I don’t see problems with it, it serves it’s function well.
But despite the fact critics and fans alike adored this program, people complained there was a lack of black representation in the show.
So to placate them, Lena Dunham basically threw in a random black character, and surprise surprise, people realized the inclusion was forced and didn’t like it.
I don’t blame Lena Dunham for this, she was literally hounded by woke fans to throw in a black character.
Lena Dunham even apologized to Donald Glover about his role in the show. Now Lena Dunham has her faults, but somehow it’s her fault that the black character was bland and included in a weird way? Writing is an emotional expression, it’s about inspiration. Good writing often happens when you want to actually do it. Well she didn’t want fucking Donald Glovers character, it was a purely executive decision.
The funny thing is, whether representation works or does not work doesn’t matter as much as putting something in because you want it to be there. And that is why representation does or does not work.
In many of the examples where representation worked, it’s clear the writers actually really wanted to put it there, it was part of their inspiration, their desire to tell a story. Lana Wachawski is a trans woman, and you see in the way she wrote trans characters in sense 8 that she really cares about this aspect of identity in the story. Azeem in Robin Hood had mistakes with his inclusion, but it added a spice to the movie, you can tell the writers were having fun.
Mean while with the examples where it doesn’t work shows some desire to pander or meet a quota more than actually expand or develop a story. In Super-girl the writers barely cared about the character they created, you can tell with how little the character actually had, how little substance. In THE ELITE the Muslim character either exists because they wanted to make a statement about religiously conservative families or they wanted a story of a culture class. Either way they really screwed up in the research, and if you care about a character, research would have been done and they would have understood how a Muslim family would be like. The worst offender is what happened with GIRLS and Lena Dunham’s forced inclusion of a black character.
If people write letters to show runners or complain about a lack of representation in an otherwise very good show that isn’t in anyway hateful, who cares. Don’t force anything, let the representation come organically.
And in the case of the ELITE please actually research and talk to people of the community you’re trying to represent.
So let everything come natural.
What's the deal with Adeel? 